To find social work easy?

[hereforthecakeandwine]

Will try and summarise for length sake -

Qualified 8 years ago in social work.

Have a job in adult mental health.

All through my degree people would try and warn me off of social work, too many caseloads, high burn out, too much responsibility.

I remember as a student on placement finding social work so enjoyable and also very 'easy' for lack of a better word. Not what I was expecting at all. However, I assumed that was because I was a student with a low case load and also protected.

However, 8 years in my job and I still find social work to be a fairly easy job. I love interaction with the clients and equally enjoy the paperwork/meeting side of things.

I have 33 cases at the moment and do duty once a week and am able to keep on top of it all. If not it just gets prioritised and pushed to tomorrow. I can only do what I can do. I find my job really enjoyable and low stress. However, I do find I am very organised and manage my time well. I don't do overtime or think about work outwith working hours. I see some colleagues really stressed and I sometimes question, am I doing something wrong? Am I not giving it my all if I'm finding it (and have done since being a student) so easy?

Anyone else think that they really scare people off of social work and perhaps the reality isn't as bad as they make out?

Interesting to read a range of opinions. I’m hoping to apply for the Frontline social care masters programme but also slightly terrified if it’s going to be too much for me.

I had an adult mental health sw ask me how I work in children's without crying. I said I don't, I've cried plenty of tears over the 13 years I've done it. She seems genuinely surprised, like she expected me to not have emotions

I worked in child protection for 10 years, then with adolescents at risk of care. I could manage it and other than emergency situations I usually worked a regular 9-5/6 and rarely weekends. I could manage but it was emotionally hard and now even 15 years later I still think of some the cases and they make me incredible sad. No desire to return to it. High stress

I retrained and thought I’d go into HR but I ended up doing what I call social work light with adults with disabilities who are looking for work. It’s very easy and low stress. Even when it’s busy I don’t mind it.

Yes to this! People who say ooo don't know how you do it, it'd upset me.
If I was hard as nails I wouldn't have gone into this ridiculous job with the misguided idea of 'helping'. (What we really do is just fight fires). Of course it upsets us and when people stop feeling anything about the work we do, it's time to go.

I absolutely love it and consider it a blessing and a privilege

Sometimes I hate it and want to scream into the abyss. It can be varied. But some of the most amazing friends I've got came from social work. And when you have a personal drama there's no one better to have around you than your little social work gang. Also when you have a win, oh my god, the best feeling. Like children going home because their parent made the changes, or a mum telling you she finally feels like her and the children are safe 🥰

This might be a little off topic, but out of interest (as this was a big factor for someone I used to know) with respect to some people not engaging, do you ever come across cases where damage was caused by services themselves? For the person I knew (upheld major complaint etc) trust was irrevocably damaged and I wish workers after this had been a little more vigilant in trying to understand the barriers. As it was, the damage was never properly acknowledged and got watered down over time (records not kept updated etc). New workers didn't really explore reasons for non-engagement and I wondered if this is something that is commonly being missed, or if there are strategies or teams out there to work with people like that?

Not to derail the thread, or put you down, but I am finding this really interesting to follow. I have had nineteen years of contact with children and families social workers, due to having a severely disabled child and I really think the system is broken. 90% of the social workers involved with my family have been ineffective at best, interfering at worst (and I've been through a lot due to the high turnover in this job sector). They often avoided me if when I needed help, (I assume this was because I was not in danger of harming my child) but hounded me whenever they needed to complete an assessment within a deadline at the last minute. 90% of the social workers I had interactions with would spend most of their time on extended leave - I assume on full or partial pay. I wished, as a carer who was left to look after my severely disabled dc for 24 hours a day seven days a week without a break, that I too could have had the luxury of taking time off whenever the stress was too much. At least you are paid for your job and have the option of taking time out when things get too much. In my experience, most social workers have been more about interference and box ticking than they have been about help. I personally, have only come across one who actually helped me. Interestingly the one time I really needed help during the first lock down when my husband and I both had covid and I was trying to look after him and my disabled child, and was unable to leave the house or access a supermarket online delivery order to get food, the social workers were nowhere to be seen! It was the local people in my community, and a local charity that reached out to me to make sure we were ok and offer me help. No one from social work even bothered to check in and see if we were ok. I understand you are up against it and doing a really hard, job but I just wanted to give you another perspective. If it were up to me, all social workers would have to look after a severely disabled child for a week or two without a break or be left to deal with a similar situation as part of their training, so they could have a genuine experience of what some families are actually going through. Not saying this to put you down, just sharing to remind you that there are plenty of people who don't have the option of breaking down, or going on paid leave when things get too much.

I think it also depends on your capacity to 'switch off' .. if you carry the work with you - it would be far more challenging, than if you can 'box it' at the end of the day

I think a lot depends on the staffing levels and having a good and supportive manager. If you've the right resources and support around you then yes it's manageable, but that varies from team to team. Even within children's services I've worked with teams who are evidently close knit, staffing retention is really good and the manager approachable and supportive and a good leader, and teams where the opposite is present. And the sad thing is that ultimately ends up affecting the people you work with. Resourcing staff is the best way to provide a quality service.

@Hooplahooping oh I totally agree. There is totally a ‘badge of honour’ with working ‘20 hours over my contract’ etc. without much recognition that you also spent an hour having a good old moan in the office this morning.

I've worked in the children's services for the last 10 years. I've worked with looked after children, safeguarding teams, and assessment teams. I think the thing that makes the job hard is that you are never done - it is relentless.

My experience is also that the wider professional network and families are happy to hold social workers responsible for fixing everything. When we can't produce a magic wand or suggest that other people should approach things in a different way, we are called stupid, incompetent, interfering or other unkind things.

We have so many balls to keep in the air, we're working with families in crisis, and we have limited resources at our disposal and indeed in the community.

On the other hand, I can't see myself leaving this line of work. I get enormous satisfaction from bringing about safety and wellbeing for children.

Glad you've clarified your not working with children and child protection. I would have to assume you were an empath (think that's the right -path) to say that's easy and not stressful.

I think it's great you love your job and you cope well, it's obviously your calling.
Some people are more suited than others.
It is possible that your post may be insensitive to other SW however that can happen no matter what you say. We all have different experiences.

Totally understand this regarding the work load.
I am a nurse and always struggled with workload and the feeling of never completing the work when one day a colleague said to me "it's a 24 hour service, you've done your bit".
Helped me enormously.

Yeah, I think attitudes towards work needs to change. Before I had my son I thought nothing of working 60+ hours a week but in the last 5 years I just won't do that anymore. My son needs me to be present both physically and emotionally and my job, while important, is just a job.

I think collectively social workers (and all other public services) need to only work 40 hrs a week, take toil, and highlight to the councils/community/government that there needs to be a major investment in the people of the country and adequately funding children's services is part of it. We're people first and our profession afterwards and I'm not willing to be a martyr to my job. Obviously, there will be times when I can't leave exactly on time but there can be a balance.

I think it specifically refers to child protection. I worked in early help and had a break down and we were a level below social care. Also line manager was evil, and most of team would stab you in the back in an instant

Oh gosh, that sounds like a horrible place to work. I've found in most places I've worked that my colleagues were what made the workload easier. When there's a good team culture it really makes a difference.

@Shayisgreat not ours, we were moved into a trust due to failings. Several restructures and merging of teams had lead to cliques and no team spirit. I remember once we were all waiting for line manager to arrive for a team meeting. We hot desked across two sites so there wasn't enough computers for everyone to log on. So some people were standing waiting as meeting was due to start. Line manager rang to say she would be late, she asked her deputy what everyone was doing and she said 'oh they are all standing around chatting like there's nothing to do' As if they could even sit and work!

yes I was a social worker for a child protection front line team, local authority, I liked the work and didn't find it too stressful, it was the management that I despised, still to this day I intensely dislike the way the higher ups managed the teams. I left because of that reason.

Utterly wrong and offensive, patronising rubbish. All the adults SW I know were top flight students who got 2:1s or 1sts with a genuine interest in adults work.
And if you seriously think adult service users and families necessarily welcone SW involvement and are cooperative it only shows you have not the remotest idea what you're talking about.
You should apologise to every one of my colleagues working overtime, weekends and flogging their guts out to give a good service with care impossible to find and hospital discharge nurses breathing down their necks and blaming them for medical failings.
Seriously I'm so fucking angry on their behalf, SHAME on you.

Have had some experience of social workers as I'm closely involved in a friend's situation and I have to say this is never been my impression of the job. Even some of the things SWs have said don't leave much to the imagination that they are working in a high stress job with and impossible workload, with very little tools to actually help people practically. It would be great if everyone felt the way you did about the job.

some people just have different skill sets that suit them to different types of work better. It sounds like your particular skill set (time management, organisation, ability to compartmentalise) is an especially good fit for what you do.

I'm not a social worker but I am a foster carer so we see the burn out of our children's sw which in turn affects our children as they have to get used to a new person which sets them back on their trust and ability to rely on adults.
Even before we did this job, my mam always said a social worker could never win because they're damned if they don't and damned if they do.

I have worked as a consultant social worker for frontline. Do it! It is a great way to get into social work!

Interesting thread. I have two friends who work as Social workers, one in CO and one with vulnerable adults.

My intention is also to become a Social Worker. I have a Degree in Social Science but need my Maths Level 2 to be able to enter the Step Up to Social Work Programme, which I hope to be doing in around 2 years.

I have considered CP but I tend to struggle to switch off to others suffering generally and feel this line of work may really affect me. Others in this thread have clarified this for me.

Perhaps working with adults is easier as you are able to help them to help themselves vs children whom are in the care of adults iyswim? I can't imagine visiting children knowing they are being abused and having to walk away from their house knowing anything could be happening to them before my next visit.